We are trying to increase populations of the berry bee, Osmia aglaia, for pollination of cane fruit in the Pacific Northwest. Follow our progress...

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Bees in the field, May 10, 2011

Rosie sent me an e-mail on May 10 with this message: Hi KarenPut some out yesterday and the rest today. Everybody wants out so I hope ok. Black rasp. not in bloom yet. Blues real real close nice day would do it I was standing at shelter when I took the pictures of the fields close by. Some dandelions by shelter they are thick this year. Need to put out rest of nests for them also.Rosie

Both Osmialignaria and O. aglaia were coming out of their cocoons despite the lousy weather and lack of raspberry bloom, so it was time to get them into the field. The photos are from her cell phone. At the top are two images from the shelters in the raspberry fields showing the nests and emergence containers with bees coming out. Below is a close up of the O. aglaia cocoons and adults in one emergence container (actually, a cottage cheese container with an emergence hole).

Rosie saw blue orchard bees on the dandelions in bloom near the shelter. Here's a male O. lignaria.The black raspberries that were in the field east of our main bee shelter, where the webcam is located, were pulled out last fall. Don Sturm is planning to plant blueberries in this field, although he says he will plant some black raspberries close to the bee shelter so we can see them from the webcam.

Some blueberries have already been planted at the far east end of the field, and 100 yards southeast of the bee shelter. The rectangle of lighter colored soil on the right side of this picture is the closest blueberry field. As you can see, there was plenty of mud available for the orchard bees that day.

The blueberry plants were in bloom in May, along with the dandelion. I think there is an orchard bee in one of the flowers on the right side of the plant, an inflorescence under the dandelions. It would be nice if the orchard bees proved to be good blueberry pollinators.